New 'Wi-Fi Direct' Spec Revamps Device Networks

On Wednesday, the Wi-Fi Alliance formerly announced Wi-Fi Direct, a revamped ad-hoc protocol for allowing devices to talk to one another directly. It's an optional specification that will begin to appear in products next year.

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If you know anything about 802.11/Wi-Fi, you know there's infrastructure mode, where you have many clients that connect to an access point (such as laptops and phones connecting to a wireless router), and there's ad hoc mode.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, along with everyone else in the industry, knows this. That's why it formed a task group to create a new breed of P2P Wi-Fi connection. On Wednesday, the Wi-Fi Alliance formerly announced Wi-Fi Direct, a revamped ad-hoc protocol for allowing devices to talk to one another directly. It's an optional specification that will begin to appear in products next year.

In theory, it takes personal area networks (PANs) from short distances using cables or Bluetooth to full Wi-Fi range and speed.

The gist of Wi-Fi Direct is this: forget using a router or access point (AP). Instead, Wi-Fi clients like computers, phones, printers, projectors, etc., will all talk to each other directly. One of them will have what's called a software-based access point or "soft AP" inside so it can act as a group owner for those connections. Uses could include, for example, a digital picture frame that lets all Wi-Fi equipped cameras connect to upload pictures, printers that let all laptops or phones connect for quick printing, or game systems that connect directly for head-to-head battles. The Alliance even sees it taking the place of Bluetooth and proprietary wireless for connecting keyboards and mice and headphones.

Wi-Fi Direct will take its cue from another Alliance-run spec, Wi-Fi Protected Setup, which has a push-button, or PIN code-based, quick setup. New systems and equipment might get that, but what will it take for old computers, even the antique 802.11b spec, to make these new P2P connections? Nothing. A Wi-Fi Direct group owner will portray itself to older Wi-Fi devices as if it were any other AP on the network.

A group owner can also be a bridge between clients and other networks. The group owner host device could connect to the infrastructure network at the same time so it could, for example, provide Internet connections to the other devices.

IT people, who have long suffered when employees brought in unsecured wireless routers and hooked them directly to corporate networks, don't have to worry about that. The Alliance says they've considered that and mechanisms are in place so that, for example, a laptop with Wi-Fi Direct doesn't suddenly become a unwanted bridge.

Don't expect to see this P2P tech in your laptop, phone, or peripheral Wi-Fi for a while. There's many a plugfest to take place as the Alliance and partner companies who were part of the working group test the technology and see what works and what will become part of the test bed for future certification of devices for Wi-Fi Direct. Chipmakers Atheros and Intel have both said that they back Wi-Fi Direct 100 percent; in fact, Intel showed off a soft AP tech called "My Wi-Fi" last January at CES and says that Wi-Fi Direct will be integrated into it.

Eric narrowly averted a career in food service when he began in tech publishing at Ziff-Davis over 20 years ago. He was on the founding staff of Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine (all defunct, and it's not his fault). He's the author of two novels, BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale"--Publishers' Weekly) and KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. He works from his home in Ithaca, NY.
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